


Sometimes You Have to Get Lost Before You Realize You’ve Been Waiting to be Found

by alwayslily22, Des98



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amazing Best Friend Ron Weasley, Auror Harry Potter, Black Hermione, DADA Professor Harry Potter, Dad-To-be Ron Weasley, Disability, Disabled Character, Draco has a crush on Harry, F/F, F/M, Finding out their places in the world, Gen, Grown-up Harry Potter, HARRY HAS A PET FERRET, Head of Gryffindor Harry Potter, Healer Draco Malfoy, I dreamt this idea, I will never live in the real world, Lawyer Hermione Granger, Life-Altering Injury, M/M, Medium Burn, PoC Harry, Post-Hogwarts AU, Pregnant Hermione Granger, Severus Snape is a butt trumpet, Snape will probably get his shit together eventually, Three Years Later, Trans Characters, aftermath of abuse, and I don’t want to, anyway, because I wanted to do a post-war Au but not TOO post war, because I’m too impatient for slow burn, because apparently my brain doesn’t think we have enough WIPs, but goodness I’m gonna drag it out a bit, diversity, even though we have SO MANY WIPs!, gods I love that tumblr page btw, not-quite-enemies to friends to lovers, thanks for coming to my tag talk, that goes back to hogwarts, they’re all twenty-one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 07:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15480300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayslily22/pseuds/alwayslily22, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Harry suffers a life-altering injury on the job that forces him to square up with old painful truths, but it also leads him to realise that he’s been looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places.  Can he learn not only to survive but to thrive in a world that has been irreversibly changed for him in the most fundamental ways?





	1. Chapter 1

Harry sighed plaintively- it had been  _ so  _ close to the end of their shift that he could nearly taste the takeaway that he would have had while enjoying a late-night chat with Ron and Hermione over some cheap bottle of awful wine while they laughed over all the dumb things they’d done at parties during their eighth year.  But instead, here they were, in some dingy old cave, seeking out the man they’d been looking for the past two weeks- he was involved in an illegal smuggling ring that dealt mostly in billywig venom, which in itself wouldn’t have been that bad if they hadn’t been using innocent house elves to ferry it from Australia to the UK and North America.

_ Five more minutes and this would have been the night shift’s job,  _ he thought to himself, then immediately felt guilty.  This was his job- him and Ron, they’d gone through their auror training together; they were  _ fantastic  _ partners.  But it was just… three years after the war, his first real year on the job, and he already felt weighed down by expectations.  He  _ shouldn’t  _ feel this way- after all, he’d been saving people his whole life; it was practically  _ all  _ he knew how to do.  He was great at it- he and Ron had the best stats on the force, after all, even over the officers who’d been doing this thing twenty-odd years.  But he was twenty-one and he was  _ tired,  _ so goddamn tired.

He was halfway tempted to do what Tonks did- quit the force after the war, but  _ she  _ had a good reason; she had a child and a gay werewolf, both of which she’d earned with one night of experimental drunk sex before she decided that, yes indeed, she  _ was  _ aroace.  He had only his group of friends, including his bisexual ex-girlfriend and  _ her  _ girlfriend, both of whom kept telling him he should ‘try to find someone.’  But none of them  _ depended  _ on him- except, of course, for Ron, his auror partner who stood next to him, wand out and the spiral scars on his arm from the ministry battle standing out in stark relief as he flexed, ready for a battle.

“You alright, mate?” Ron signed to him- part of their success was in learning BSL to communicate with each other during stakeouts or other tense situations, so they didn’t give their locations away.

“Fine,” Harry made the  _ okay  _ sign with one hand.  “Just mourning the death of my evening.”

“I feel that,” Ron had to stop an audible chuckle from leaving his lips.  “You know, after you fell asleep tonight-” it was a well-known fact that Harry was always the one to pass out first at their little impromptu parties, even though he was usually the one who drank the least (he’d seen-  _ felt  _ the effects of when Vernon got drunk and violent, and this kept him personally from having any more than one or two drinks at any given time), “Mia and I were gonna try some more.”

“Ew, mate,  _ stop!”  _ Harry made a face.  He’d of course be glad to be ‘Uncle Harry’ to any Granger-Weasley progeny, but he didn’t want to hear about their  _ creation.   _

“Shit!” Ron suddenly spoke aloud as they both felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand up.  “Get down, mate!”

They both dropped to the floor as an  _ Avada Kedavra  _ whizzed inches past Ron’s ear- these blokes weren’t fucking around, then.  Normally, Harry would have fired an  _ expelliarmus  _ in response- a warning shot, almost- but these people had tried to kill his best friend right off the bat, and he wasn’t having any of it.  He shot a  _ sectumsempra  _ into the darkness, towards where he could hear movement, fully aware of what it did this time and wanting it,  _ wanting it so badly.   _ People like this had taken his godfather, and they’d  _ almost  _ taken Cedric- his first boyfriend and one of his closest friends after Ron and Hermione.  They’d nearly taken Lupin and Tonks and Fred, left his godson without parents and his brothers without a brother.  Merlin, he knew by now that he  _ hated  _ this job, only did it because he didn’t know what else he was good at and because someone needed to protect Ron and nobody made a better pair or knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses like they did.

Ron wasn’t holding back either tonight, and Harry knew that he wouldn’t have anyway, even if he wasn’t following his own lead.  He fired off a slicing hex, his mouth set in grim satisfaction as they heard it hit, one of the men jumping back with a yelp as the smell of blood filled the musty cave.  All it took to finish him off was a simple  _ impedimenta,  _ and he was down, ready to be collected as soon as they’d gathered the other convicts.

Harry neatly dodged a cruciatus curse, light on his feet as he tracked Ron by his ginger hair, body moving in tandem with Harry on the other side of the room.  They’d both laughed at Hermione when she suggested they take ballet classes last year when they were trainees, but it turned out to have been one of the best ideas she’d ever had, and the improved understanding of each other’s movements and the grace and fluidity it gave them had saved their lives more than once.

He and his brother fired off a stunning spell at the same time, hitting the second convict with enough force to knock him down and  _ keep  _ him down.  Their intel had told them that there was only one more, and green and blue eyes both screening the damp walls for the outline of a body, hiding and ready to either flee or fight.  They found him crouched in a crevice near the floor, trying to quietly sneak through, and Ron had him down with a  _ Petrificus Totalus,  _ just as Harry sidestepped the dagger that he’d thrown just before he’d frozen.

“Nice, mate!” Ron said aloud, clasping Harry’s hand in a firm grip as they brought their chests together, and Harry couldn’t help but smile- Ron’s post-case high was one of the few things he loved about this job.  “Perfect last case together,” he continued, and Harry looked at him, stunned.

“What do you mean?” He asked, looking at his best friend.

“Harry,” Ron looked him straight on, “I’ve known you for ten years- I can see that you hate this job.  Once we book these guys, you’re gonna march right in there and quit.”

“But-”

“But nothing,” Ron rolled his eyes at Harry fondly.  “I’ll be fine, brother- you  _ know  _ I will.  Sure, no partner in the world will be as great as you are, but that’s not worth sacrificing your happiness for.  Quit the force, take some time to figure out what you love. It’s not like you can’t afford it.” Ron  _ did  _ have a point- Harry was the sole inheritor of both the Potter  _ and  _ Black estates, so he had enough for several lifetimes even if he never worked again.  But he needed work- he just wasn’t sure what kind yet.

“I… thanks mate,” Harry reached in for a hug, and that was when it happened.

Their intel had been wrong- maybe on purpose- there was a fourth man, hiding in the shadows beneath an invisibility cloak, and he took this chance now to knock out two birds with one stone.  With Harry Potter and Ron Weasley down, the force would have no chance of catching them.

Harry felt the malignant, unknown magic at his back, and he didn’t think.  With a similar movement to what he’d used to dip Ron in the finals of their dance class, he shoved him underneath his own body, taking the full brunt of whatever had been thrown at him.  It hit his lower back, centimeters to the right of one of the longest scars Vernon had left with his belt, and there was a white-hot, explosive pain in Harry’s spinal cord as his eyes rolled back in his head.  He was briefly aware of Ron throwing the cruciatus curse at his assailant with one hand while the other held his limp body, and then he knew no more. 


	2. Chapter 2

Since the war, Harry wasn’t used to waking up in the hospital.  He was Harry Potter, so he was of course more than used to _being_ in St. Mungo’s, but he usually got there under his own power, occasionally supported by Ron but almost _always_ conscious at the reception.

Now, however, it was clear that he’d already been there a number of days, at least, as Ron was at the bedside, holding his hand, sporting several days of scruff on his chin and smelling more than a little ripe.  Harry figured that it would be best not to point this out. He heard retching noises coming from the en-suite bathroom (he was Harry Potter, so _of course_ Mungo’s gave him an en-suite bathroom, although apparently no-one bothered to tell Ron this), and Hermione emerged before he could even get his eyes open.  He knew all his friends by the feel of their magic, their unique signatures, but his other best friend’s felt different today and Harry realised with a start that it was because there were _two._ His friends had finally managed to get pregnant, probably shortly before his accident, and now the poor girl was having morning sickness.  He managed to get his heavy eyelids to listen to him, and green eyes in a brown face met bronze ones in an even darker one as she fixed her curls in their scrunchy.

“Congratulations,” he croaked with a sideways smile, and Ron let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“Fuck you, mate, you and your stupid hero complex,” he moaned, his voice sounding scratchy from disuse.

“Love you too,” Harry chuckled wryly, just glad it wasn’t Ron in the bed.  “Now, I’m gonna go take a shower, and might I suggest that you use it afterwards?”

Ron didn’t even take offense at the jab, and for some reason his clear blue eyes were like a deer caught in headlights as he looked at Harry, who was currently finding himself unable to move his lower body.

“Oh dear, Harry…” Hermione’s hiccoughed- she’d been hoping it wouldn’t have to come out like this- “You… the spell… it…”

“You’re paralyzed, mate,” Ron picked up after his wife, his voice harsh and full of self-reproach.  “The spell got you from the waist down. You’ll never be able to walk again, because of me…” he put his head in his hands and sobbed, and Harry did the only thing he could think to do.  He pulled himself up, dragging the dead weight of his legs, and wrapped his best friend in a hug.

“Hey… shh,” he soothed, patting Ron’s back.  “I’d rather have you than use of my legs.” He’d think about the consequences to himself later, but for now he just wanted his family to know it would be alright.

Ron just cried harder for some reason, and Harry continued rubbing soothing circles on his back as Harry turned to Hermione, a thought occurring.

“Has anyone been feeding Malfoy?” He asked his pregnant best friend.  Malfoy was his pure white ferret- he’d passed him in the window of a pet store one day, a grouchy, surly thing, and he couldn’t resist the opportunity.  Malfoy the ferret ate his socks, scratched his hands, and ruined all his favourite throw blankets, but he was somehow hopelessly attached to the little monster and unable to get rid of him.

“Yeah- Ginny and Luna have been looking into him,” the black girl answered, and Harry sighed in relief.

“Thanks- dunno what I’d do if I came home paralyzed _and_ with a hungry, cranky Malfoy destroying my apartment.”

“Did someone call for me?” The _original_ Draco Malfoy, decked in purple healer’s robes, poked his head into Harry’s room, and he could only stare.  He’d known, of course, that Draco was doing accelerated healer’s training, but he didn’t expect him to be… well, here, healing _him._

“N-no,” Harry sputtered, face turning red.  “I, uh… I was talking about my ferret.”

“You have a ferret... named after me...” Draco rolled his silver eyes, hiding the flash of concern in them.  “It’s been three days, and already I regret saving your life.” Harry didn’t take offense- they’d gotten on pretty well in their eighth year, but insults and jibes was still how they communicated.

“Some life-saving it was,” Ron looked up at the blonde, glaring fiercely.  “Only the top half of him.”

“Ronald,” Hermione sighed, her face saying that they’d clearly already had this argument.  “Draco did his best-” Harry looked between the two, wondering when Hermione had started calling him _Draco-_ “he was the only one in the whole department who didn’t give Harry up as a lost cause, and you can still have excellent quality of life as a paraplegic.”

“It’s alright, Mrs. Granger-Weasley,” Draco replied, keeping it formal.  “I can understand that your husband might still hold some… animosity towards me, and even among patients with no personal connection to me, I am often the outlet for their grief when things don’t turn out as planned.”  The words _death eater_ and _evil scum_ were thrown around quite often here in the neurological unit, people often not content with the fact that Draco had saved their loved ones lives, wanting them to be fully back to normal even when survival itself was a near-miracle.  He was used to it, and a schoolboy rivalry was honestly quite refreshing in comparison. “But I assure you that I deeply regret not being able to restore Mr. Potter to his former condition, especially as he saved my life during the war.”

“You saved mine too,” Harry pointed out as he curiously tapped his legs, feeling nothing.   _“Twice.”_ It was true- once in the manor, and then again when he’d thrown his wand towards him, in the courtyard during the final battle.

Ron had stopped glaring and the defeated expression had once again come over his face as he stared blankly towards the wall.

“He’s not quite himself,” Hermione explained.  “He hasn’t slept in three days, and he feels terribly guilty that it wasn’t him.”

“It’s a good thing it _wasn’t,”_ Draco scoffed.  “I’ve seen the pensive footage, and if Ronald had taken the spell, the position he was in would have meant that even _I_ couldn’t have done anything to save him.”

“Still got a high opinion of yourself, I see,” Harry told Malfoy, again reaching out to pat Ron’s shoulder comfortingly.

“Still can’t use a hairbrush, I see,” Draco quirked one perfect blonde eyebrow at him (there was _no way_ he didn’t shape them, Harry mused idly), and the darker boy reached up with one thankfully still-functioning arm to pat at the messy waves.

“Did it look _any_ better three days ago?” He sighed, groaning when Hermione shook her head to the negative.  She didn’t have time to say anything else, however, as she clapped a hand over her mouth, running to the loo again.

“Is she ill?” Draco asked, “because she really shouldn’t be around you, then, not when your immune system is compromised by recovery.”

“Pregnant,” Ron grunted, Malfoy not exactly high on the list of people to announce the happy news too but not about to see his wife kicked out of the room.

“Oh,” Malfoy looked like he didn’t quite know what to _do_ with that information, women in general not exactly being something he did, metaphorically or literally, but he offered a stiff, awkward ‘congratulations’ nonetheless. “There’s a… a potion I can get from the maternity ward that should help with that,” he offered, and Ron, who still had a grudge against Malfoy but whose desire for his wife’s comfort eclipsed it, nodded.

“Thanks,” he rasped, and then couldn’t resist adding a “you git.”

The blonde just rolled his eyes, unruffled- after a year at this job, he’d seen far worse from people that- and he hadn’t thought this possible- liked far less.  “I’ll be back in a moment to check your vitals,” he told Harry, and by the time Hermione came out of the bathroom, sweating, there was one of the rare more pleasant-smelling brews being waved under her nose.

“Thanks,” she nodded at Malfoy, downing it.

“So, any name ideas?” Harry asked.  “I vote Viktor, after Ron’s first crush.”  This finally got the redhead out of his stupor enough to smack Harry with a pillow, and his best friend laughed, then shot a wandless cleaning charm at him.

“Seriously, take a shower,” he ordered, and Ron sighed but agreed, shuffling towards the bathroom now that it looked like Hermione wouldn’t need it for a while.

“Well,” Draco waved his wand over the savior of the wizarding world.  “Everything looks pretty good, although of course we’re going to be keeping you here for a week or two.  I’ll have to help you relearn basic tasks, and there are some physical therapy exercises I can show you that can keep your legs from atrophying- it would be a shame to let such attractive muscles waste away.”

“Malfoy, did you just call me _attractive?”_ Harry blinked at him in disbelief, and the blonde blushed a bit as he realised what he’d said.

“Yes, well, you named your ferret after me,” he deflected, writing something down on his clipboard.  “Now, these exercises require two people, for obvious reasons…”

______

By the end of the day, Harry was exhausted- he’d been visited by the entire Weasley family, including Fred and George with some ‘get well’ prank supplies from WWW, and Molly, who kept bursting into tears, as well as by Neville, who’d brought some lovely plants to brighten up his room, Ginny and Luna, who ‘waved aside the nargles’ (Harry did have to admit that the melancholy that had been sneaking up on him receded a bit after that), and Seamus and Dean (who almost burnt down his hospital room and then had to be chased away before they had sex in his bathroom).  He’d finally convinced his best friends to go home and get some sleep in a _real_ bed, so by eight o'clock he was alone, finally able to ponder the effect that all this would have on his life.

He couldn’t walk.  He couldn’t use his legs or climb stairs on his own or do anything that required two good legs.  Granted, he knew from a quick experiment after everyone left that he could still feel his... _wand,_ and a good wank _had_ helped relieve some of the tension that had been building up.  Still, as someone who’d spent his entire childhood being told he was useless, and getting slapped and beaten and starved when he hadn’t done his chores to the Dursleys’ exacting standards, the idea that he’d have to _rely_ on people, at least to a certain extent, was discomforting.

He was kept from falling any further into he mire of self-pity or traumatic memories by the entry of his snarky healer, who shoved one of the takeaway boxes he carried under Harry’s nose.  Idly, Harry realised he hadn’t really eaten yet that day, other than a few of Molly’s biscuits to appease her. He’d gotten _somewhat_ better at listening to his body’s hunger signals after he’d left the Dursleys’ for good, but he still tended to forget to eat when he was busy or upset or something huge like this was happening.

“Here,” Malfoy placed the food in Harry’s hand and offered him a plastic fork.  “From that food market you like in Borough- couldn’t have the savior of the wizarding world eating hospital food, now could we?”

Harry opened the box and stuck his fork in, scrutinizing Malfoy’s expression for any hint of what he might be feeling.

“You went halfway across Muggle London to get me _a curry?”_ He asked, disbelieving.  “How do you even know what I like, anyway?”

“The prophet follows your every move,” Malfoy reminded him, but there was something shifty in his grey eyes.  “Besides, I thought it might be worth trying.”

“Your shift ended two hours ago,” Harry reminded him.

“How did you know _that?”_ Malfoy raised a triumphant eyebrow, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“The healer rotation is on that sheet beside my bed,” he pointed with the end of his fork, talking around a mouthful of chicken.

“Don’t talk when you do that,” Draco said, wrinkling his pale nose.  “It’s uncouth.”

“Aren’t _you_ fancy?” Harry rolled his eyes yet again as he reached for a napkin.  “But hey, since you _are_ here so late, can I ask you a question?”

“You still do have that physical ability, yes,” Malfoy responded with a smirk.  “Furthermore, I will even answer said question if it is within my abilities.” He stabbed at a carrot, bringing it to his mouth with all the decorum of someone at a state dinner instead of sitting at the end of his childhood enemy’s hospital bed.

“Prat,” Harry muttered.  “Anyway- realistically, how much will _this,”_ he motioned to his legs with his fork, “actually affect me?”

“Realistically?” Draco pulled his legs up onto the bed and crossed them, getting into a more comfortable position.  “Well, it’s easier than it would be for a muggle, since you can do a lot with magic, but it’s safe to say that your days as an auror are over.”

“Is that it, then?” Harry raised one eyebrow.  “They were over before, anyway.”

“And why’s that?” Draco nearly dropped his food in surprise, but his seeker reflexes enabled him to keep the box in his hand.

“Didn’t like it,” the other shrugged.  “I’m sick of fighting all the time. So, what else is going to be different?” He asked, changing the subject.

The Malfoy heir scrunched his forehead in thought for a little bit, thinking carefully before he answered.

“Well,” he said slowly, “your sex life is obviously going to be different, but as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, you’re still quite capable of having one, and I’d rather pegged you for a bottom anyway.”

Harry blushed bright red.  “Isn’t that a little… _personal?”_

“Part of my job,” Draco shrugged indifferently, but it was clear that the non-healer side of him was enjoying his patient’s discomfort a little _too_ much.  “But speaking of personal,” his expression became more serious, “let’s talk about those scars on you back.”

Harry’s face darkened immediately and he crossed his arms belligerently over his chest.  “Why?” He asked, and then panic set in as something else occurred to him. “Wait, do Ro-”

“Relax,” Draco stood up and pushed his shoulders back down against the bed, “your little friends weren’t there when the glamours fell- nobody else besides me was, actually, and I made sure to change your gown or give you a sponge bath when Granger pulled the Weasel away to force him to eat twice a day.”

“Thanks,” Harry’s tense posture relaxed minisculely.  “But then why do we need to talk about it?”

“Look,” Draco sighed, messing up his perfect hair as he ran the long fingers of one pale hand through it, “this isn’t easy for me to say, but if it wasn’t for your poor childhood nutrition and the obvious abuse, I might have been able to at least partially restore your ability for movement in your lower body.”

Harry was silent, worryingly silent, for nearly two minutes as he took this information in, and then a light bulb shattered halfway across the room.  Draco was glad he’d put up silencing charms for the conversation as he waved his wand to fix it.

“I know this can’t be easy-” he began, only to be interrupted as Harry threw a pillow angrily towards the wall.

“What could _you_ know about easy?” He growled.  “You had parents that _loved_ you!”  He seemed to remember their sixth year a moment later, and all the things Draco had been forced to do, because his face crumpled into an expression of remorseful defeat.

“Sorry,” he sighed, flopping back against the mattress.  “That was low.”

“It’s alright,” Draco, in a somewhat unprofessional gesture, placed his hand over Harry’s.  “You’re right- I _did_ have at least a mother who loved me, and it’s not fair that you didn’t. But know that I don’t pity you- pity doesn’t help.  It didn’t help me either.” With his free hand, he pushed aside his purple robe and lifted the cotton shirt underneath. Right where the faded lines of his sectumsempra scars ended, a jagged, angry red welt ran from his armpit to his hip bone.  Harry knew those sorts of scars- he had a lot of them.

“For all she hated muggles, my Aunt Bella _loved_ their brutal torture methods,” Draco explained succinctly.  “And I hate to admit that I lashed out at my mother quite a lot that summer when she’d only been trying to help, because I could see the pity in her eyes.  I’m not going to do that to you, and I’m not going to tell anyone, but you need to know that what they did to you will affect your recovery. Frankly, Potter, your immune system is shit, you should be nearly a foot taller than you are, and you can’t just put glamours up and forget about that.  I’m your healer, and it’s my job to make sure that you’re as healthy as possible, _holistically._ I can’t just forget about this; I’m going to prescribe a regime of medications for immune health, nutrition, and bone and organ strength- don’t worry, I’ve gone through a private potioneer, and she’s very discreet.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Draco looked at him as if he was stupid.  “Well, Potter, you’re the hero of the wizarding world, and I’m sure you don’t want everyone knowing what sorts of medical issues you’ve got.”

“No,” Harry reached out and grabbed his wrist, and Draco forced himself not to wonder why he felt tingles going all the way up his arm and through the rest of his body, “Why are you doing all _this_ for me?  Getting curry, helping me with these other health issues, talking to me like… like a _friend_ would.”

The blonde felt a thrill of exhilaration rush through his spine at the word _friend,_ ignoring the disappointment in his stomach that that was _all_ Harry had called him, a disappointment he wasn’t even fully aware of.

“It’s in my oath as a healer to do no harm, and ignoring this would do you harm,” he said simply, shrugging one shoulder.  “And… as wonderful as Granger and the Weasel are for you, they both had happy, healthy childhoods with families that would never do to them what ours did to us.  I figured… I figured that you could use someone who _understands,_ who’s there to listen to you but not pity you or try to force you to think about things faster than you’re ready to.”  He seemed to realise that he’d talked far more of his emotions than he ever had before with Pot- with _Harry,_ and he looked away self-consciously as Harry gave him a searching expression with those ernest green eyes.

“Thanks Mal- _Draco,”_ he eventually replied.  “That means a lot.”

“Yes, well, it _is_ part of my job,” he said, trying to bely some of the emotion he’d allowed to slip out moments ago.  “Now come- let me show you these physical therapy exercises.”


	3. Chapter 3

Harry was released two weeks later with a job lined up as the Hogwarts DADA professor.  Headmistress McGonagall had come to see him while he was recovering, casually mentioning that hers had quit (something about the Creevey boys, some firecrackers, and quite  _ a lot  _ of banana cream pie) and that she knew that he was now out of a job, and Harry had taken the bait immediately.  Draco waved away the nurse who came into collect him, insisting on wheeling Harry out to reception himself, where they found Hermione, Luna, and the entire Weasley family waiting for them with a very  _ odd  _ piece of furniture.

“Harry, mate,” George began.

“We’ve built you a wheelchair!” Fred exclaimed.  Harry eyed the contraption skeptically.

“That doesn’t  _ look  _ like a wheelchair,” he said cautiously.  Indeed, it was a squashy, bright orange armchair, with a crocheted white throw (stained with a number of colorful powders that weren’t  _ supposed  _ to be there) draped over the back and supported by four wooden-spoked wheels.  It looked like something a mad scientist might create, which fit, since it was created by  _ two. _

“What do you mean, my good brother?” Fred put a hand over his heart, feigning hurt.  “It is a chair, and it has wheels, therefore it must be a wheelchair! Come, my fine man, and let us show you how it works.”  

George easily lifted Harry out of the standard-issue Mungo’s chair and placed him in their own.  “All you have to do is tell it where to go,” he began, “and it listens. This,” he pointed to what in a normal chair would be the handle one pulled to make it recline, “is the muggle filter.”  He pulled it, and a glamour came over it, making it look like a normal wheelchair. “But that’s not all!”

“No,” Fred picked up again.  “It also has some extra, patented Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes features.  Tap once for the confetti cannon, twice for the jet pack!”

“I… honestly can’t see a situation where I would need  _ either  _ of those, but thank you,” Harry managed, shaking his head fondly at the two.

“Oh!” George exclaimed, “we also have one more surprise- Charles, if you would?”  Charlie came forward carrying Harry’s firebolt, except it didn’t look  _ quite  _ like Harry’s firebolt.

“We hope you don’t mind that we made a few modifications to your broom,” Fred said as he motioned to the aerodynamic leg straps placed on the handle.  “We did some research, a  _ lot  _ of experimenting, and fell a few times, but in the end, we have managed to create a completely upper-body controlled broom, with straps and a few stabilizing charms to keep those legs in place-” here George took a moment to slap Harry’s knee, which of course Harry couldn’t feel, before Fred continued speaking.  “And once you get the hang of the new balance dynamic, you should be catching snitches as fast as you always have.”

Harry very nearly felt himself burst into tears for the first time since Sirius died, looking at what the twins had done for him.  One of the parts of his injury that had been the hardest to come to terms with was giving up flying, and the fact that he didn’t have to was…  _ beyond  _ amazing.  He pulled both men forward by their arms, trapping them in a bear hug that had them struggling for breath- for such a short, scrawny young man, Harry was  _ strong. _

“Thanks guys,” he muttered into their chests, and they each patted him on the back with an arm.

“Don’t mention it,” George told him as they pulled back.  “Anything for you, lil bro.” Fred took the opportunity to ruffle his hair fondly, destroying what little order Draco had managed to wrestle into it this morning, but Harry didn’t mind (although his healer was making an indignant face behind him).

“Come on, pet,” Molly told him, taking the handles sticking out the back of the funny-looking wheelchair.  “Let’s get you home to ours for lunch. Draco,” she turned to the blonde, who backed away nervously, but Molly only pulled him forward by the arm.  “You come with us as well- it was through your efforts, after all, that my son didn’t lose any weight- Merlin knows he couldn’t afford to.” Draco blushed, not realising everyone had noticed him bringing in all those takeaways, while Harry had to hold back the tears a second time at having Molly call him  _ her son.   _

“Have you told them yet?” Harry signed to Ron, meaning Hermione’s pregnancy.  George and Fred, who had learned sign language to make up for George’s reduced hearing as a result of his missing ear but, in true prankster fashion, hadn’t told anyone, focused more intently- told them  _ what? _

“No,” Ron signed back.  “We were waiting until after the first appointment with the OBGYN yesterday- we were going to announce it at lunch.”

Molly, who had noticed her twins learning sign language and had  _ also  _ learned it but, in true  _ mother  _ of two pranksters fashion, had kept it to herself so she could know what they were up to, forgot herself and clapped her hands eagerly.

“I’M GETTING A GRANDBABY?!” She squealed, loud enough for the whole reception area to turn and look at the group.

“Well, it’s gonna be all over the prophet tomorrow,” Ron groaned, “does  _ no one  _ in this family  _ talk  _ to each other?!”

“Oh, hush up Ronald,” Molly swatted his arm with her handbag, leaving her son to groan and rub it, “I’m going to be a grandmother!  This is amazing! Oh-” she turned to her daughter-in-law. “Tell me about all about your vitamin routine, dear.”

_____

Molly Weasley, mother of the goddamn century, spent the entirety of the afternoon piling more food on both Harry and Hermione’s plates, and the expression on Hermione’s face as she put her fork down and then realised that there was even  _ more  _ for her to finish made Harry laugh, as he was used to being the only  _ main  _ target of the woman’s ‘fatten them up if it’s the last thing I do’ routine.

Draco was  _ also  _ being fed in excess to what he was used to as Molly looked at him kindly.

“All those late nights at the hospital, probably been a while since you’ve had a home-cooked meal,” she clucked fondly, apparently already deciding that the blond was part of  _ her  _ brood now.

“Uh…” Draco honestly didn’t think he’d ever eaten  _ anything  _ at the manor that wasn’t French, difficult to pronounce, and made by house elves, so he merely nodded, unusually inarticulate.

“Thought not,” she murmured, running a thumb along his cheek as she dumped another ladle of gravy onto his potatoes.  The affection for affection’s sake, and  _ in public  _ no less, had an odd, warm feeling squirming around in Draco’s insides.  Sure, his mother loved him very much, but she  _ had  _ been raised pureblood, and pureblood  _ never  _ showed affection in public, and all of her hugs and light touches had been when it was just the two of them, alone, with no Lucius there to berate her for giving their child ‘unwarranted attention.’

Harry laughed at Draco’s blush, that is until Mrs. Weasley descended upon him, too, with kisses and hugs, and then they were both blushing, to everyone’s amusement.

_____

“I hate this stupid ferret,” Draco grumbled as he tried to wrestle Malfoy into his enclosure, yelping when it bit him for the third time.

“You  _ are  _ that stupid ferret,” Harry laughed and waved his wand as more boxes stacked themselves up, ready for the move from his small muggle flat to his new quarters at Hogwarts.

_ “Why  _ aren’t your friends here to help you move again?” The blonde asked, looking at Harry with an unamused expression in his silver eyes.

“You are my friend,” Harry said simply.

“I mean your  _ other  _ friends,” Draco ignored the pleasant, warm feeling that spread through him at the statement and instead rolled his eyes as he finally shoved his namesake into its carrier (he refused to call it a ‘he’- he would  _ not  _ make any more comparisons of himself to that little monster than he had to).

“Ron and Hermione have an OBGYN appointment at a muggle clinic that has a ‘parents only’ policy in the ultrasound room,” Harry made a face as he formed air quotes around the words ‘parents only’, “Ginny’s at a ‘private’ tryout for the Holyhead Harpies, Luna’s out looking for Snorklacks with her dad, and Fred and George are working the shop.”

“Good to know I’m a last resort,” Draco huffed, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“There’s just no pleasing you, is there?” He shook his head at the other man.  “I’d still want you here either way, you giant twat, there’d just be more of us otherwise.”

“That’s a rude way to talk to someone risking rabies for you,” Draco said, holding the cage out and looking at the furry creature inside it distastefully.

“Relax, he’s had all his shots.”  Malfoy the ferret had actually been vaccinated  _ before  _ Harry, as it wasn’t until Draco realised that the Dursleys had never taken him for his wizarding  _ or  _ muggle vaccines that Harry was given his jabs.  Because of his subpar immune system, Draco had to stagger them out, which resulted in his hospital stay being two weeks instead of one, although none of the others were aware of the reason.

“Apparently not the one that keeps him from being a furry little  _ nightmare,”  _ Draco quipped, shoving the unpleasant thoughts about Harry’s childhood to the back of his mind, as far away as he could.   _ “Why  _ did you get this thing, again?”

“I guess he reminded me of you,” Harry shrugged.  “I ‘spose I missed our fun little spats.”

“Ah yes,” Draco raised a sarcastic eyebrow.  “I, too, miss beating the crap out of you on the quidditch pitch.”

“I was winning that fight and you know it,” Harry crossed his arms, but Draco just got Malfoy the ferret ready for floo travel.

“Hope you like that, you smelly little nuisance,” he whispered to the animal right before he shoved it through.

_ “Draco!”  _ Harry groaned in exasperation, bringing his chair over to the fireplace.  “You were supposed to go through  _ with  _ Malfoy!”

“No way in the seven hells,” the other shook his head adamantly.  Harry was just pondering whether there were  _ actually  _ seven and, if there were, how the wizards were aware of this, when there was a scuffle heard on the other side of the floo.

A very disgruntled looking Severus Snape stuck his upper body through the fire, a shallow scratch bleeding on top of the scar on his neck and another few on his face.  “I believe this,” he held out a struggling Malfoy, “is yours?”

_ “Snape?”  _ Harry asked, raising an eyebrow at the man skeptically.  “What were you doing in my quarters?”

“I am to…  _ help you move in,”  _ the man curled his lip.  “Punishment by Minerva for taking ‘too many points’ from Gryffindor.”

“Yeah, that checks out,” Harry nodded.  “So, I suppose since we’re colleagues now, we should try to start off on the right foot.  Hi, I’m Professor Potter, but you can call me Harry,” he stuck a hand out cheekily, smiling at the man.

Snape curled his lip in distaste.  “You know quite well who I am, and  _ sir  _ will do just fine,” he drawled, picking up a box labeled  _ crockery  _ and solving it through the floo far more roughly than was necessary.  Harry sighed but reminded himself, through gritted teeth, that that was what  _ reparo  _ was for, and that he must try to be a professional adult.  Well, at least he would get on nicely with Flitwick and Sprout…


	4. Chapter 4

“Good morning,” Hermione’s cheerful voice came through the floo on September the first as Harry was getting himself up and summoning his chair.  “Happy first day!”

“Thanks,” he told his best friend, whose belly at three and a half months of pregnancy now had a slight swell to it.  “Where’s Ron?”

“Out looking into other jobs,” Mia informed him- they’d told him last week that Ron wanted to quit the force, now that he was going to be a father and had seen Harry have such a close call.

“Alright, then- tell him I said good luck, and let me know if you guys need a little help in the meantime,” Harry responded as he inched into the wheelchair using the bar set up on the wall near his bed.

“Thank you luv, but we should be fine- we’ve got savings, and my job pays maternity leave, when I eventually decide to start it.”  She laughed, rubbing her stomach fondly- magical Britain, like regular Britain, had excellent maternity policies, but it wouldn’t surprise them if Hermione decided to keep working until she could no longer fit behind her desk- she loved being a lawyer and fighting for the rights of magical creatures.  Already her policies had made it so that Remus was able to get- and keep- a job working in the magical archives of the British Library.

“I figured, but if you _do_ end up with some unexpected expenses, you know it’s no problem- it wouldn’t be a handout, not after everything you guys have done for me,” Harry reiterated, and Hermione smiled at him as a crash was heard on her side of the floo.

“Oh dear,” she sighed, shaking her head of frizzy curls.  “Crookshanks is hungry- I’ve got to go, but I love you, and let us know how it goes!”

“I promise I will,” Harry laughed as the connection ended with one last resounding _“No,_ Crookshanks!”  Now that it was safe to get dressed, he pulled off his pajama top and used a little magic to wiggle out of the bottoms, calling his teaching robes to him without bothering to reach for his wand.

“Impressive,” Draco suddenly popped through the floo, raising his eyebrows at the display of wandless magic to try to distract himself from Harry’s scarred but lithe chest- he’d never been _unfit,_ just scrawny, and his upper-body strength had only been getting better lately (although of course Draco kept up the exercises with his legs too- it had nothing to do with how attractive they were, he told himself.  He just didn’t want the prophet to have anything else to dig into about Harry’s physique).

“Dray, what are you doing here?” Harry sighed and shook his head fondly, and Draco stumbled at the nickname, the unusual display of clumsiness resulting in him nearly falling on his face, except for the fact that Harry caught him.

“Oh, um…” Draco felt his cheeks heat up at the contact and righted himself as quickly as he could, which unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which part he chose to focus on), resulted in him sprawled across Harry’s lap in his chair.

“Take your time,” Harry told him, trying and failing to bite back a chuckle.  Draco huffed indignantly as he finally- _slowly_ \- got back to his feet.

“So was there a _reason_ you’re here giving me a lap dance, or…” Harry tried not to think about how much he’d _liked_ having the blonde’s bony arse splayed against him, where the only part that could feel it was, well… the part that really _liked_ it.  Feeling suddenly chilled at the loss of the other’s warmth against his chest, he summed an extra jumper and slipped it on.

“I was _here_ to wish Hogwarts’ youngest professor good luck on his first day, but if you’re going to make fun of me, maybe I’ll just leave,” Draco declared haughtily, subtly readjusting his robes.

“Well, I’m very grateful,” Harry flashed him a brilliant smile, his eyes bright behind their stupid glasses ( _must get him new ones,_ Draco made a mental note, _round, with gold frames)._ “Now, should Mungo’s youngest healer get going, before he’s late for work?”

“Oh, shit!” Draco looked at his rolex.  “You need any help?” He remembered to ask as he headed back to the floo.

“I can dress myself just fine, thank you,” Harry rolled his eyes at him, “but I appreciate the offer, especially while your arse is on the line.”

“Oh, they won’t fire me,” Draco waved off the concern, blasé.  “I saved _you,_ after all.”

“Have a good day, you prat, once you fit your giant head through the floo!” Harry called after his friend, who simply _harrumphed._

“Alright,” Harry muttered to himself, straightening his robes and trying futilely to tame his hair.  “One dramatic ex-death eater handled, just one more to go.”

______

Harry had made super _extra_ sure he wasn’t late for the first staff meeting, but he was still the last one there as he wheeled his chair in two minutes ahead of time, after grabbing a quick snack from the kitchen, ignoring the voice in his head saying “not a proper breakfast” that sounded eerily like Draco.

“Right on time, dear,” McGonagall praised, looking at her pocket watch in satisfaction.  “Excellent, considering the recent adjustments you’ve had to make.”

“Er, thanks…” Harry mumbled, ducking his head at the attention.

 _“Do_ try not to mumble so appallingly when you’re giving a lecture,” Snape drawled, which caused the headmaster to give him a stern look as they all gathered around the table.

“Now, today the express arrives, as you well know,” the tabby animagus told them all, “and so we’ll be rather busy this evening.  Hagrid,” she turned to the CoMC professor, who smiled brightly, especially cheerful due to being so full of pride for Harry, “you’ll be escorting the first years, as usual.  The rest of us are on our usual Hogsmeade posts.” She turned to Harry. “I understand that you’d have some difficulty manning the station, Harry, so it’s quite alright if you need to stay inside.”

“No, I can manage off-roading just fine,” Harry replied, slapping the arm of his chair cheerfully.  “This thing is Weasley-designed.” He knew he probably looked silly, with such a loopy grin on his face, but it just felt _so good_ to be back at Hogwarts, even with Snape glaring at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Well then,” the headmistress smiled at him proudly, “I suppose you can meet the children when they get off the train, help guide them towards the carriages.”

“Happy to, headmistress.”

“Thank you,” she smiled at him again.  “But Harry- you’re more than welcome to call me Minerva.”

“Alright Prof- Minerva,” Harry corrected, trying to ignore how _wrong_ it felt to call the stern woman by her first name- disrespectful, almost… but she was smiling at him pleasantly, so he shoved down his objections.

The rest of the morning he spent working on finalizing his lesson plans, only stopping when an elf brought him lunch and insisted on staying there to watch him eat it.  He looked over the schedule of his classes, trying to figure out which days would make which years the most perceptive for the more difficult practical seminars.

“I _sincerely_ hope you’re not planning on dressing another boggart up to look like me,” Severus Snape harrumphed as he entered staff room around lunch time, plopping down heavily into the chair next to Harry’s and eyeing his lesson plans.

“Then I sincerely hope you’re not giving them any reason to be afraid of you,” Harry answered back far more politely, scribbling a couple notes to himself in the margins of his parchment.

“Your handwriting is as a atrocious as ever,” Snape continued, clearly determined to get a rise out of Harry.

“Well, then it’s rather a good thing you won’t be grading my essays any longer,” he replied in the same level tone as before.

“Why did you take this job?” The potions master demanded.  “Hadn’t tormented me enough throughout your years here as a _student?”_

“I saved your life during the war,” the younger man pointed out.

“My point exactly.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the man.  “Believe it or not, not every decision I make revolves around making you miserable,” he said disinterestedly.

“Could have fooled me,” the other sniped, and Harry merely kept scribbling on his lesson plans, going to tap his foot against the table leg before remembering he couldn’t anymore.  He settled for drumming the fingers of his left hand against the table instead.

“Could you stop that _intolerable_ noise?” Snape grit through a clenched jaw, and Harry finally put his pen down with a sigh, looking up at him.

“Why are you here?” He asked his colleague (and wasn’t that a little strange to think about).  “It’s not like I’ve come with the intention of causing you any harm.”

“I’d rather you hadn’t come at all,” Severus responded.  “You’re a war hero, Potter, with enough money to sustain you and an injury that would have permitted you a peaceful retirement.  Why’d you come back to take on something else?”

“I’d rather not retire at twenty-one, thanks,” Harry said tightly.  “And to answer your question, I love it here at Hogwarts. My years here were some of the best of my life, despite everything that went wrong.  I want to give that to other kids as well.”

“You really liked it here _that_ much?” Snape sneered.  “What, your golden childhood wasn’t good enough?  You had to live in an actual _castle_ to be happy?”

Harry clenched his fists tightly, determined not to do something he’d regret on the first day of his dream job.  “My childhood wasn’t all that great, actually, but that’s neither here nor there,” he forced out.

Snape looked at him through narrowed eyes.  “What do you mean, wasn’t great?” He sneered.

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business,” Harry said, before he felt the other trying to enter his mind.

Harry had never been quite as bad as occlumency as Snape believed, using the memories he _did_ see to hide the worst ones, of all the truly horrifying things the Dursleys had done to him, and he’d only gotten better during auror training, _flourishing_ under the tutelage of a proper instructor.  Severus Snape met only with a blank wall.

“I’d thank you not to advance such an invasion of my privacy again,” he bit out, using every bit of control of his temper he’d ever learned at the Dursleys as he turned his chair and headed towards the door.  “I’ve really no intention of getting on badly with you, professor, so I’m hoping that you can at least learn to be civil for both our sakes.”

He charmed the door open without even bothering to reach for his wand and slammed it behind him, taking the silencing charm off the wheels of his chair so he could allow the noisy clattering they made over the cobblestone floors, the racket as close to the noise of angry stomping footsteps as it was possible for him to get.

“Fucking _Snape,”_ he swore under his breath, not quite sure where he was headed.  Suddenly he decided some time in the air might help him clear his mind and calm his anger, so he reversed back towards the direction of his quarters, only opening the door long enough to summon his broom before heading towards the quidditch pitch.

His mood brightened a bit as his wheels hit the dirt off one of the ramps Prof- _Minerva-_ had built and the crisp, cool autumn air hit his face.  He was rather surprised, however, when a moment later he nearly ran Neville over.

“Hey Nev,” Harry said, bemused, as he looked up at his friend.  “What are you doing here?”

“Professor Sprout only just got an owl about a research opportunity breeding a new species of Mandrake, but it would keep her too busy to teach _and_ be the head of Hufflepuff, so she called me.  I’m between things at the moment, and I always thought it might be nice to teach, so I packed my bags.”  The chubby man wiped a bit of soil off his jumper and hefted his carpet bag again, smiling at Harry. “We’ll be coworkers; it’ll be fun.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, returning the wide grin and feeling better already.  “It will- do you need any help with the rest of your stuff?”

“Nah,” Neville shook his head.  “I’m only bringing enough for the week right now, and then I can just get settled completely come the weekend.  You going out for a flight?” He looked at Harry’s modified broom as his friend nodded.

“Yep,” Harry answered, popping the _p._ “Wanna come with?”

“Hah!” Neville snorted.  “That’s funny.”

“What?” Harry shrugged.  “You’ve gotten better.”

“And yet I _still_ prefer it on the ground,” the other responded, blowing a bit of blonde hair off of his forehead.  “Well, have fun; I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Alright Nev,” Harry waved as they went in opposite directions, urging his chair faster and faster until he reached the pitch, ready to feel the wind in his hair.

It took a bit of effort for him to get himself from the chair to the broom without any aid.  He first had to set the firebolt to hover at waist-level, then manually swing his right leg over with his hands.  Halfway between chair and broom, he had to very carefully balance his upper body until the momentum pulled his other leg to its own spot, also keeping his dangling toes from brushing the ground.  He’d found out the hard way that if they did, the broom assumed that his feet were about to take the weight and stopped hovering, leaving him a crumpled heap on the ground.

Finally, he was strapped in and ready to go, and he urged the firebolt higher up as he did a lazy barrel roll.  He hadn’t quite realised just how much he’d used his legs in flying before, and it had taken him a while to get used to not being able to, but he was a natural flyer and it had been a couple months that he’d been steadily improving, so he shot up easily towards the sky, gathering speed before turning sharply to dive back down, pulling up just in time to avoid hitting the ground.  He felt the weight of his earlier confrontation (it couldn’t reasonably be called an argument, not when he himself had remained so calm) leave him as the fresh, clean air took away his tension, and by the time he’d jerry-rigged himself back into his chair, it might as well have been ancient history. There were students coming soon- _his students-_ and he’d sooner eat his own useless legs than let _Severus Snape_ ruin that for him.

______

Harry let the nostalgia roll over him as the Hogwarts express pulled into the station, smiling as the students piled off, looking around eagerly, many pairs of eyes bulging out when they saw him.  The prophet had put out a special about him being the new DADA professor, of course, but with all the drivel they’d published about him in the past, it was hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.

“Are you _really_ Harry Potter?” One particularly bold third year asked as she looked him in the eyes.

“That is what my birth certificate says, yes,” he answered her, and she looked him up and down again, slightly taller standing than he was sat down.

“And is it true that you can’t walk?” She asked, her accent thick and colloquial.

“No, this is just for looks,” he quipped, and then berated himself for being so sarcastic- he must have been spending too much time with Draco lately.

“Yes, it’s true,” he amended, meeting her curious expression with his own green eyes.  “I’ve had an accident and can’t walk, but I _can_ teach,” the twenty-one year old assured her, and she looked him over once more before nodding and running towards the carriages.

“Alright there, Harry?” Hagrid called out as the young man pointed a lost first year in his direction.

“Just fine Hagrid, thank you!” Harry yelled back, loud enough that it could reach him over the din of students and at his great height.  And it was, really- this is where he _belonged._

Another duty that Harry had agreed to take on was head of Gryffindor House, since up until then McGonagall had been doing it still, for lack of a better alternative.  This made him the youngest head of Gryffindor House ever and the second youngest head of house, after Snape, who’d become head of Slytherin at nineteen.

He watched proudly as a _Bates, Hannah_ was sorted into his house, but he made sure to clap every time a student was sorted.  He ignored the looks he got from Snape for clapping for the Slytherins, determined that none of the little snakes should feel as alienated as they had when _he_ was in school.  He also wanted to come across as a friendly face that they knew they could go to, especially because their own head of house was such a git.  Still, he was glad to see tha there were so many Slytherins- the school needed them, and he knew that the previous two years had seen far fewer of them, after the war.  This year, the houses were pretty much even.

A line of little Gryffindors followed him as he wheeled along parallel with his prefect, Meggy.  The portrait of the fat lady opened for them, and a ramp made its way down magically for Harry’s chair.  The first years all looked around in wonderment as they entered the common room, and the new head of house could easily pick out the muggleborns by those who looked most impressed by their new dwelling.

“Hi everyone,” Harry began cheerfully, and immediately twenty sets of eager little eyes were upon them.  “I’m Har- Professor Potter,” he corrected himself, still getting used to his new title, “and I’ll be your head of house for the year, as well as teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.  If you have any problems, or even something you don’t _think_ is a problem but need to talk to someone about, my office door is always open.  As I’m sure Professor McGonagall already told you, this house will be your family, but I expect you to interact with and try to have friends in other houses as well.  There is strength in unity, and it’s important we remember that.”

“Even with the Slytherins?” A little voice in the back piped up.

 _“Especially_ with the Slytherins,” Harry confirmed.  “We’re not so different from them, you know.  I was almost a Slytherin myself, actually.”

A chorus of gasps broke out amongst them- _Harry Potter,_ almost a Slytherin?  One could almost see the cogs in their young heads turning, leading them to the conclusion that if their savior and awesome head of house could be considered for the house of green and silver, then it couldn’t be all that bad.

“Boys’ dorms are to the left, girls to the right,” he told them.  “I’ll be in my office, if anyone needs me.” He wanted to escort them up, but the castle was still working on constructing the ramps, and it just wasn’t practical for him to get his chair up without them.

It wasn’t even twenty minutes later when he heard a timid knock on his open door, and Harry put down his book to give his full attention to the pale child with the shaggy brown haircut blinking up at him through ragged bangs.

“Hello,” Harry greeted.  “Cecelia, right?” He’d done his best to remember as many names as he could during the sorting.

“Er, I prefer Cecil,” the eleven-year-old said quietly, and Harry nodded in understanding.

“Alright, Cecil,” he amended.  “What can I do for you- are you feeling a little homesick?  Because that’s okay, you know.” He imagined he would have been homesick his first year, if he’d gotten to grow up with his parents.

“No,” Cecil said slowly.  “It’s just… the stairs wouldn’t let me up into the dorms.”

Looking at the first year, at the loose t-shirt and baggy jeans and androgynous haircut, something occurred to Harry, and it was with soft eyes and a kind expression that he next spoke.

“Which stairs did you try?” He asked, and Cecil looked up at him through thick black eyelashes.

“The girls,” Cecil answered.  “I stepped on the girls’ staircase, because that’s what I’m _supposed_ to do… right?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said softly.  “Is that what you want?”

“I… I don’t… you mean I can…” Cecil looked as if someone was finally holding out to him an answer he’d been looking for all his life, one he thought he’d never get.

“Try the boys’ staircase,” Harry told him gently, and the first-year nodded once, turning to leave before spontaneously going back and throwing his arms around Harry in a tight hug, and Harry patted his back gently.

“Thank you, Professor Potter,” he whispered, and Harry smiled again.

“It’s no problem,” he said, maneuvering his chair to follow Cecil over to the staircase and watching with pride as he climbed them easily.  “Let me know if you have any more trouble.”

“I will,” Cecil promised, and he was smiling widely as he rushed up to his new bedroom, leaving Harry watching from the main common room as he felt what it truly meant to touch the life of a student in a meaningful, personal way.

Ten years after his own first year at Hogwarts, and Harry Potter was finally home to stay.


	5. Chapter 5

One would think, after so many years of being famous, that Harry would have expected the hero-worship from his new students and adjusted his lesson plans to compensate for the time it would take up, but Harry Potter was an aggressively modest person- modesty was quite honestly his only aggressive quality, in fact.  So there he sat behind his desk, tapping his fingers eagerly against the wood because he couldn’t tap his feet, full of new vitality and a _joie de vivre_ that was honestly unlike any he could ever remember having since first year before the stone, when things were simpler, and expecting eager young minds ready and waiting only for the knowledge he had to impart to them.

Instead, the first thing someone in his first-year class asked him was “Professor Potter!  Is it true that you defeated Voldemort with just a disarming charm?!”

“Uh…”

“Is it true that you arrested more dark wizards than Mad-Eye Moody in _one year_ as an auror?”

“Now, Ron really had more to do with th-”

“Can you really do wandless magic?”

“Yes, bu-” Harry had been about to say “but I’m sure anyone could with a little practice,” but these excited little monsters were throwing out questions faster than he could answer them.

“Did you really slay a basilisk when you were _twelve?!”_

“How’d you win the triwizard cup when you were the youngest kid in the tournament?”

“I really wish I ha-”

“Did you really get hurt saving Auror Weasley’s life for like, the millionth time?”  Someone else asked, and that was all Harry needed to finally get control of his class.

“Alright everyone- quiet down, quiet down!” He ordered, and the students immediately fell to silence, staring at him in absolute rapture.  “Ron and I were auror _partners-_ we trained together, we worked together, and we solved all our cases together.  Nothing I did on the force- or since I got to Hogwarts when I was your age, for that matter- could have been done without him.   _He_ was the real power behind what the wizarding world considers my greatest accomplishments, to be honest, and he’s saved _my_ life more times than I can count.  Just because I happened to be covering him when I got injured does not make me a hero- the same thing could have happened to him any number of times when he was making sure I didn’t get myself killed in some spectacularly embarrassing way.  If you want to get the most out of this class, you need to stop looking at me like some sort of mythological hero that can do no wrong, because I’m not. Honestly, the thing I’m proudest of is being Ron Weasley’s best friend, and I will _not_ have any disrespect of him in this class.  Are we clear?”

“Yes, Professor Potter!” A chorus of pre-pubescent little voices rang out, and Harry smiled at them, softening again.

“Awesome- alright now, let’s talk about wand safety…”

_________

It wasn’t just his first year class, either- everyone up to his NEWT students, who had only been a couple years under him in school, seemed awestruck by him.  The seventh years had been starting Hogwarts the same year _he_ was in the tournament, and he genuinely couldn’t see how anyone who had seen his atrocious attempts at dancing in the Yule Ball could still be so impressed by him.

His NEWT students were actually the ones he was most nervous about- hell, these kids had been taking their OWLs when he was doing his eighth year, so it wasn’t like he was vastly more experienced than they were or anything.  He adored his new job already, but knowing he’d been a student in conjunction with every kid he had to teach who was in fourth year or higher was daunting.

“Alright guys,” he wheeled his chair out from behind his desk once his seventh years came in, so it felt like a more casual conversation.  “I know that this is probably a little weird for you- I mean, we went to school together, and you all lived through the second war. You’re all adults.  Following that, I think we can have a more informal atmosphere in this class- as long as there is mutual respect and you guys make sure to follow all the safety instructions, I think it’ll be fine if you wanna call me Harry, and we’ll probably end up doing a lot more discussion-style lessons instead of having me standing around behind a board and lecturing you.”  He realised afterwards that the use of the word ‘standing’ in this situation was a bit ironic, but as no one else mentioned it, he just let it lie.

None of them said anything, and Harry couldn’t help but sigh.

“C’mon guys, I’m pretty sure you’ve all seen me trip over my own feet in the hallway back when I was in school- can we please cut it with this starstruck nonsense?”

Finally, one student in the back spoke up.  “Can you still teach us to duel, since you’re… you know…” she waved vaguely at Harry’s seated form, and he chuckled a little.

“It’s all right- you can say it.  I’m in a wheelchair, and I will be for the rest of my life.  It’s not like I don’t know it by now, so there’s no need for you all to tiptoe around me… Er, pardon the pun.”  A few students laughed. “But to answer your question- Leanne, was it?” The girl nodded, looking _very_ pleased that he knew her name.  “Yes, I can still teach you to duel.  Hell, this chair is Weasley-designed, so I could probably hold my own in a duel quite well with the way it moves, honestly.  Now-” he smiled mischievously as he took his wand out of the sleeve of his Weasley jumper. “Let’s have a little review, shall we?”

_____

Later that night, after all the students save the very oldest had cleared out of the common rooms, Harry and Neville were having tea in his quarters.

“Rather strange, isn’t it, teaching kids we’ve gone to school with?” Neville asked as he dipped a biscuit into his overly-milky cup of Earl Grey.

“I was just thinking that earlier, actually,” Harry agreed, casually waving his hand towards the fireplace, causing the flames to leap higher and Neville to give him an impressed look- no matter how he downplayed it, Harry’s affinity for wandless magic was hugely impressive.

They were still trading anecdotes of their first day on the job when Draco marched through the floo, brushing soot off of his robes with a self-important air about him.  Harry rolled his eyes.

“What are you doing here this time of night, Dray?” He asked his friend, who merely looked at him haughtily.

“Why, that’s no way to treat your healer, who’s come _all the way_ to Hogwarts after his shift just to check on you- in the interest of professional duty, of course.”

Harry snorted.  “Sure Draco, sure…”

“Seriously though, how are you doing- any pain?” The blonde asked, a concerned expression on his face.

“Wouldn’t that be something, since I can’t feel anything in my legs,” Harry quipped, rolling his eyes.

“You know what I mean,” Draco muttered, his cheeks heating up as he began wordlessly doing the exercises with Harry’s legs, gentle as could be even though the other young man certainly _couldn’t_ feel them (and therefore didn’t know what he meant, since Draco was _clearly_ bullshitting to hide the fact that he was a blushing mess who let his concern for his friend take over his (rather intelligent) healer brain).  “With the chair- is it comfortable? Any pain in your upper body from the new positioning?”

“Nope, I’m fine.”  Harry shook his head emphatically.  “Fred and George are miracle workers.”

“Speaking of the Weasels,” Draco continued, ignoring the eye-roll he got from Harry, who knew that he was secretly fond of them (and that they were fond of _him_ as well, even if Molly was the only one who was open about it), “do you ever wear _anything_ besides those jumpers?”

“You mean like the one _you’re_ wearing now?” Harry teased, gleefully pointing to the jumper Molly had knit Draco as a thank-you gift for saving Harry, a lovely silver with a light-blue _D._

Draco blushed obviously again, wishing his skin weren’t quite so pale (like he always did when he was around Harry, damn this constant blushing).  “It’s cold in the break room,” he muttered, head down. “And it’s comfortable.”

“And _now_ you know why I wear them all the time,” Harry laughed, reaching out and ever-so-casually pulling Draco onto his lap.  The blonde would never admit that he actually _squeaked._

“Um, wh… what are you doing?” He stuttered, cursing his lack of composure.

“Neville’s in my armchair,” the hero of the wizarding world shrugged casually.  “I’ll have to add another if you plan on visiting like this often. But for now, I’m fine like this- I can’t feel your bony arse digging into my thighs, remember?”

“I could have _stood.”_ Draco managed not to stutter this time, but he hated the way his voice was cracking and far, _far_ to high.

“If I can’t stand in my own office, you can’t either,” Harry chuckled, leaning forward and resting his chin on Draco’s shoulder.

“Did you take your potions?” The Malfoy heir asked, trying to do something- _anything-_ to distract himself from the fact that he was _sitting on Harry Potter’s lap-_ **_on purpose._ **

“Yes doctor,” Harry rolled his eyes, but his voice lowered sensually as he let the word _doctor_ slip huskily over his tongue, stretching it out just a bit longer than necessary.  Then he continued talking to Neville like nothing at all had happened, and the new herbology professor raised an eyebrow at the two ever-so-slightly but said nothing.

Their little social gathering ended around midnight, and Harry let Draco off his lap with just a few teasing protestations as Draco squeezed out a goodbye and high-tailed it back through the floo to his flat (he didn’t care _how_ big the manor was, he wasn’t going to stay there while his father was on house arrest- personally Draco thought he deserved Azkaban, but the man had made a significant number of bribes).  He said goodnight to his mother in her room (who was also staying with him, feeling quite the same way on the Lucius matter- she hadn’t even wanted to marry him in the first place, but pureblood decorum called that she married who her parents chose, no matter how much of a git he was) before going to his own and shutting the door.

He leaned his back against the wood, exhaling shakily with knees feeling like jelly as he slid slowly down to the floor.   _Merlin,_ he had a problem, and he was falling in love with it.


	6. Chapter 6

The days turned into weeks, and soon they were well into October, the winter winds promising their upcoming presence as the cold nipped at students’ skin through their school robes, and many were pulling their warm cloaks out from the bottom of their trunks already.  For Professor Potter, it was the days of triple-layering his Weasley jumpers, which had the added advantage of helping to de-emphasize the fact that although the hungry days of the Dursleys and of the war were long gone and he got regular exercise, Harry was still rather scrawny.  Tone, admittedly, and no doubt attractive (as the upper years liked to gossip about amongst themselves), but scrawny nonetheless.

Harry and Neville had always been good friends, but as coworkers they only got closer, and it was nice to have someone that he’d gone through school and all of life’s trials with who lived so near to him.  He still saw Ron and Hermione every weekend, of course, and often during the weeks if he could manage it, but not even half a year ago he had been working with Ron (the only part about being an auror he’d _liked)_ and spending more time at their flat than his own, so it helped ease the ache of missing them, to have another close friend to spend his evenings with.

They were spending one such evening marking papers and having tea in the teacher’s lounge; Draco sometimes joined them, but he’d been working a lot of late nights lately, so it was just the two of them at the moment.  Harry was tapping against the arm of his chair with ink-stained fingers as he tried to find something in the current assignment to justify raising a Hufflepuff fourth year’s grade from an _E_ to an _O,_ since they were so close.  Neville was talking about a particular excursion he’d made into a muggle cafe the previous weekend.

“Honestly Harry, I can’t _believe_ the prejudices of some people.  I mean, even growing up seeing muggleborns being treated the way they are in the wizarding world, I never fail to be astonished by the way people look at each other, you know?”

“What happened this time, Nev?” Harry asked, running a hand through his hair- he wasn’t surprised at all, honestly; being half-Pakistani (and  with a skin tone that said ‘clearly not-white’) in a very gentrified neighbourhood growing up, he’d not only _heard_ it all but been the _target_ of the awful everyday racism that people seemed to get away with without consequence.  

“Some bloke in the line in front of me was going on about how we shouldn’t be letting people in because they stole our jobs or some such nonsense- as if we didn’t go butting into every country ever for hundreds of years and make things miserable for _them,_ and even if we didn’t, I don’t see what the problem is with letting people live where they want.  I mean, wizards don’t really have _that_ sort of problem, at least- half the old families came from abroad at _some_ point or the other.”  The Potters, of course, were one of them; somewhere between the third Peverell brother and Harry, the family had made their way to the Indian subcontinent for a few centuries before James’ grandfather came back around the turn of the twentieth century, bringing a very young Fleamont Potter with him.  They weren’t the only British nobility to spend a lot of time abroad, either, which (besides the lack of basic human decency) was part of why this anti-immigration rhetoric Neville had heard bits and pieces of in the muggle world bothered him so much.

“It’s a bloody barmy thing to believe, yeah, but a lot of people do.”  Harry shook his head in exasperation. “My Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were like that.”

Unfortunately for Harry, Severus Snape happened to be passing by at that moment, and upon hearing the words Aunt Petunia,” through the cracked door, he stopped, pushing it open.  “Potter?!” he barked, “how do you know your Aunt Petunia?”

Harry looked at him strangely.  “I grew up with her and her family,” he answered (and it didn’t escape Neville’s notice that she said _her family,_ as if he wasn’t a part of it).  “How many relatives did you _think_ I had?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“A great-aunt or _something,_ I assumed,” Snape croaked.  “Literally anyone _but_ Petunia- why _on earth_ would Albus put you with _her?!”_

“Why would the man who raised me to die put me in a bad household- _gee,_ I don’t know,” Harry spat, although Neville thought his tone was still less acerbic than his would have been in the same situation.  

“Potter, I didn’t…” the potions master looked almost… _remorseful,_ but no, Harry thought, that couldn’t be right.  “I thought…”

“Yes,” Harry said, gathering himself, so that his tone was still rather tight but could pass as courteous, “I know what you thought.”  Then he pivoted his chair towards the exit. “I’ll see you tomorrow Nev,” he told his friend, his voice as kind as it always was. “Good night, love you mate.”

“Love you Har,” Neville reciprocated, and Harry turned his head back to smile at his friend before the door swung shut.

“Fucking Snape,” Harry swore as he pulled himself into the chair set up in the shower with the bar on the wall, putting a water-repelling charm on his chair so that it would be close for when he got out but wouldn’t get wet.  “Couldn’t find out when it would have done me any good, but _now_ that I’m happy and safe he’s got his giant greasy nose in my business…”  He turned the knobs on the shower, letting the stream of water run hot and strong, easing the tension ache in his muscles.

He definitely needed more than just the hot water, though…   _Merlin,_ he was thankful that he could still feel his cock as he took it in hand, stroking the head, gently at first, as he allowed the image of Draco to spring to his mind.  He wasn’t quite so oblivious as that, that he didn’t realise that he was at the very least _sexually_ attracted to Malfoy, and probably romantically as well, if he would have been offered the chance.  Malfoy was his healer, and his friend, but he didn’t know if he would ever think of him, Harry, as more than that.

 _Doesn’t hurt to dream,_ he thought to himself as he began applying a little more pressure to the head and stroking upward again before…

 _“Dook, dook!”_ Malfoy the ferret cried impatiently, followed by the sound of ripping fabric.  Harry had fed him when he came back to his quarters, but apparently it wasn’t enough for the demanding animal.

 _Not right now, you fluffy nuisance,_ he groaned mentally, but the ferret kept screeching, so with a sigh Harry gave up on his efforts to unwind and quickly finished washing up, not naive enough to believe that the conditioner he put in his hair would actually do anything tame it.  He pulled himself back out and tried to take the time to towel dry his hair, but his hair was still dripping by the time Malfoy’s screeching became unbearable. He sighed and gave up, performing a drying charm despite the fact that he knew what was going to happen- _poof!_

“Stupid Malfoy,” he mumbled under his breath, for once not referring to Draco.  But he couldn’t stay angry with him for very long, even though he was sitting on the remains of his favourite _ACDC_ shirt.

“You really _are_ just like your namesake, aren’t you?” he sighed fondly as he picked up the ferret.  “I don’t pay attention to you the second I come home and you’re going to work yourself into the strop of the century, hmm?   _Hedwig_ is never this difficult.”  Malfoy just gave Harry an unimpressed look with his ferret eyes, clearly not affected in the least by his owner’s attempts to inspire him to behave.

“Dook, dook,” he purred in response, sticking his face into the crook of Harry’s shoulder.

“Yes, I love you too, you poncy furball,” Harry laughed, kissing his little wet nose.  “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m quite tired.”

 _“Dook!”_ Malfoy hissed, when Harry attempted to put him back on his little ferret bed (which was very difficult and required quite a bit of contortion, since he had to do it from his chair- he didn’t like levitating the little guy, no matter how awful he was being; it just felt too impersonal).

“Are we really going to do this _again?”_ he sighed tiredly, running his free hand through his larger-than-usual bird’s nest of hair.  “That is a memory foam pet bed, you little monster- it’s more comfortable than mine, honestly!”

Malfoy continued clucking at him disapprovingly when he once again attempted to put him on the ferret bed, and Harry sighed but picked him back up, putting him back on his lap as he wheeled towards _his_ bed.  Malfoy scampered cheerfully over to the right side as Harry once again heaved himself out of his chair, collapsing onto the bed in relief.  Malfoy was happy, at least, curled up pleasantly on the pillow. Harry hadn’t known that ferrets could snore when he _got_ Malfoy, but they did.  He was a very light sleeper, so the first few nights that the creature had insisted on sleeping in his bed, he had been rather exhausted afterwards.  Now, however, he’d gotten used to it, mostly, although if the creature was being louder than usual he would still stir. Hermione liked to tell him that he was too lenient with him, that he should make him sleep in the next room so that he could rest better.  Harry couldn’t bring himself to, though, and the woman just shook her head and smiled. Ron told his wife in private that she had no chance of convincing Harry to leave him in his little pet bed- Harry had been trying to get Malfoy into bed since the sixth year, after all (Hermione rolled her eyes and playfully smacked her husband when he did this).

“Night buddy,” Harry whispered to him.  “By the way, if you wanted to escape and go annoy Snape tomorrow, I’d be okay with that.”

“Dook,” Malfoy responded sleepily, which Harry liked to imagine was a _yes._

_____

That weekend, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville had dinner at the Weasleys’ on Saturday (most of which Molly spent fawning over Hermione’s rapidly-burgeoning belly).  Draco was supposed to join them, but he’d floo’d ahead to let them know he’d be working late again. The hospital had been working him harder than ever since he’d shown that he was one of the most competent they had, although there’d been no talk of a pay-raise yet.  Harry thought it rather unfair; his friend had done more than enough to prove that he’d changed after the war, although he really hadn’t much of a choice in the first place when it came to getting the mark.

“I’m going to go check on him,” Harry said after the bottle of wine was finished (he himself had only had half a glass, and Hermione none at all, for obvious reasons) and everyone was taking themselves tipsily up to one of the many free beds in Molly’s now-empty nest.

There was no need to specify who _him_ was.  “Alright mate, jus’ be careful goin’ through the floo,” Ron slurred, throwing his arms clumsily around Harry (he was a very _affectionate_ drunk).

“I will,” Harry laughed, rolling his eyes.   _Honestly,_ he hadn’t gotten lost since the first time he’d done it back when they were twelve, but the redhead still told him to be careful nearly every time, especially after he’d had a few.  Ron didn’t drink to excess, but even when he _did_ have a few too many, it didn’t bring up unpleasant memories for Harry of Vernon’s drunkenness (one of the reasons he tended to avoid bars).  Tipsy Ron grew even more protective of his best friend, often to the point of forgetting that he was quite capable of handling himself, and it was such a contrast to his uncle’s inebriated-but-still-highly-harmful-aggression that he could only laugh.

Mrs. Weasley had had Bill install a nice little ramp leading up the slight ledge to the fireplace, even though Harry insisted he could manage just fine, so getting through the fireplace was easy as he found himself in Draco’s office, right as the man came in, looking exhausted and rumpled as he stripped off his healer robes, showing off a cashmere sweater and black trousers underneath.  

“Hey- rough night?” Harry asked sympathetically, taking in the dark circles under his eyes.

“Not casewise- it was all fairly routine,” Draco spoke around a yawn, running a hand through disheveled hair.  “It was just _long-_ I feel like I’ve been putting in so many hours lately.”

“Yeah- I think you ought to talk to your supervisor, see if he’ll cut you some slack.  You must have been doing overtime for what, three weeks in a row now?”

“Something like that,” Draco agreed.  “Can I get you some tea?”

“Here, I got it; you sit down,” Harry ordered, wheeling over to the kettle.  “My healer of all people should know I’m more than capable.”

“I didn’t mean it like that…” Draco began, nervously, but Harry just rolled his eyes at him.

“I’m just teasing, you knob,” he chuckled.  “Now sit down before you pass out.”

“Oh!” Draco did sit, but was up again nearly immediately as he went to rummage through his desk.  Harry fixed him with a stern look.

“Oh, _relax.”_ It was Draco’s turn to roll his eyes.  “I’m not going to break into pieces or anything.  But I’ve been meaning to try something…” he took out a bottle of Vitamin E oil and placed it on the desk.

“This worked wonders on the scar Bella gave me,” he said, holding it out and suddenly looking timid, which seemed rather out of place for him.  “I’ve been meaning to offer to do it for you, but I didn’t want to seem invasive…”

“No, it’s fine- I appreciate it,” Harry was quick to reassure him.  “I _do_ sometimes notice a bit of tightness, with the really deep ones, so I’ll try anything you’ve got.  Tell me though,” he looked up at the healer, his eyes suddenly guilty and anxious. “You didn’t have to put that on… well, you didn’t have any trouble with…”

“The scars from sixth year weren’t deep enough to be anything but cosmetic,” Draco interrupted, aware of where he was going with this.  “And they definitely hurt less than the cruciatus I tried to cast on you would have- hey, no buts,” he was quick to cut Harry off as he saw the other man open his mouth to protest.  “Now, why don’t you take your robes off and I’ll start warming the oil a bit.” He took the bottle, a lovely glass one and no doubt full of the good, expensive stuff, and held it near the fire for a minute or so as Harry divest of his robe and jumpers.

Draco began to second-guess the idea when he was once again faced with Potter’s chest.  It wasn’t overtly muscular, but it was fit and lean, and if one could ignore how he got the scars, they almost added a ruggedly handsome effect to his appearance.  He couldn’t deny that there had been _some_ personal benefit to the offer, getting to see the man shirtless, but it had mostly been because he wanted his friend to be comfortable, so he soldiered on.

“I’ll do your back first, since the worst ones are there,” he murmured, as Harry obediently leaned forward.  Long, gentle fingers rubbed the lotion into the razed skin, the contrast of their tones like milk to hazelnut.  It took a good ten minutes before he was satisfied that he’d covered the area and covered it well, but all too soon it was time to do his chest, and Draco felt a shiver go from the base of his spinal cord all the way down, realizing that he would be face-to-face with Harry while he offered such intimate contact.  Part of him was touched the other trusted him, part of him thrilled in simply being able to touch him, and part of him wished he’d been spared the exquisite agony of it all, of being so close to him and not able to have him, to be close to him in the way that he _truly_ wanted.  He pulled up a chair.

“God Draco, don’t do _that,”_ Harry chided, gently touching his wrist, his hands warmer than they had any right to be.  “You’ll just be bending forward awkwardly. Here-” he pulled Draco forward onto his lap, not so hard that he couldn’t resist if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to, despite his slight, undignified hiss of surprise.

“No sense in _you_ getting a cramp trying to ease mine,” Harry said faintly, his voice low and rough.  Draco swallowed heavily.

“Er, I suppose not…” he agreed, and his fingers began to work again, aware of Harry below him, and in front of him and _around_ him, filling up far more than his physical space as his presence invaded every crevice of Draco’s mind, heady and intoxicating and far better than any long-aged French wine.

“My back already feels better- I didn’t quite even think about it after so long, the way the skin was a bit too tight in those areas,” he sighed pleasantly, lips parted and lids half-closed over viridian eyes as he relaxed into the other’s ministrations.

“Things we’re used to living with don’t seem like such a big deal, not until they’re gone and we realise how much better off we are,” Draco intoned softly.  He remembered how _free_ he’d felt to get out of his father’s house and from under his thumb, relieved not only of the weight of his overbearing presence but from all the little things that reeked of him and his influence and that reminded Draco of what it was like to grow up there, to feel isolated and insufficient, his mother his only ally in a world where neither one of them mattered half so much put together as Lucius did alone, standing tall and rigid with his austere cane held in his tight hands.  

Lucius Malfoy had never seemed farther away than he did in that moment, with Harry Potter’s body softening under his touch and his expression trusting, and Draco looked, really _looked,_ down into his eyes.  He wasn’t trying to memorize the lines of Harry’s face- he’d done that long ago, back when he’d still been _Potter,_ and he’d known it so well that even bruised and swollen and bloody, Draco felt his heart stop from halfway across the room as Bellatrix called him down, as he risked everything to say that he “couldn’t be sure.”  And Harry’s eyes, those magnificent emeralds in his face, so much better than any actual jewell, were wide they looked at him, the pupils dilated, thinning the ring of green until it was nearly disappeared. He knew what this meant, knew it from his healer training and from his own face as he gazed into the mirror, his body there but his mind on Potter.  Harry was _attracted_ to him.

He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t take this chance.  He felt Harry’s breathing hitch in time with his as he leaned forward, both of their eyes fluttering shut, their lips centimeters from meeting.

And then someone stepped through the floo.

______

 _“Severus!”_ Draco jumped back from Harry’s lap as if he’d been burnt, and Harry was so focussed on missing the contact that it took him almost half a minute to realise that his least-liked coworker was staring at his chest, the horror apparent on his face to anyone who was used to reading his expressions.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Harry nearly growled, wasting no time to grab his wand but summoning his jumper to him without it.

“I forgot he even had the password- he _never_ visits me on weekends,” Draco stammered anxiously, his eyes begging Harry for forgiveness.  

Harry just gave him a soft look to let him know that he wasn’t mad.  Severus still hadn’t spoken, and Harry once again fixed him with a glare.  The man’s black eyes were on his chest, as if he was still seeing the bare, marred skin under the knit fabric Harry had placed over it.

“I…” he began, his voice tight, before he took a deep breath and seemed to regain at least a little of his composure.  “I came to discuss a new potion with Draco; I had no idea you’d be here Potter, honestly.” Nobody mentioned what had clearly been about to transpire upon the man’s entrance, but Harry cursed him for ruining the moment.  Draco’s eyes were cast towards the floor, clearly self-conscious over what had occurred.

“Well I am, so can you _get out,_ please?” he asked tightly, throwing in the ‘please’ as a last-minute attempt not to come across as _too_ impolite- he had to remember that he _worked_ with this man.  But for now, his priority was to talk to Draco, to let him know he had nothing to be ashamed of, maybe even to tell him exactly how much the other had come to mean to him if it wouldn’t overwhelm him too much.

Draco still said nothing, skirting around the edges of the silent confrontation as Harry locked eyes with the older professor, green harsh as black, for once, avoided his gaze, and it was as close as anyone in the last twenty years had ever seen Severus Snape to squirming guiltily.  The silence was broken by a bottle clattering to the floor, and Harry mentally berated himself as he realised that he’d been so eager to have Draco’s hands on top of him that he’d carelessly thrown aside his robe with all his evening potions in the pockets, and now they were there, laid out like fruits ripe for the picking under Snape’s probing gaze.

“Immune health,” he rattled off, of course recognizing the brews immediately.  “Nutrition, bone strength, organ repair- _Merlin,_ Potter- what did they _do_ to you?”

“Nothing you should concern yourself with,” Harry snapped, snatching back the bottles, uncorking each in turn and knocking them back with far less of a grimace than usual, eager to rid them from the man’s sight.  But the damage has already been done.

“Who did you prescribe them through?” he turned to Draco, who still kept his eyes hidden from any contact.

“That’s confidential patient information,” he told his godfather, and Harry was eternally grateful to him in that moment, for being so professionally competent in such a personal situation, and for using it as an irrefutable excuse against the older Slytherin’s inquiries.

“It doesn’t matter,” Snape sighed, tugging a lock of his hair in frustration.  “Cancel them- I’ll brew them myself.”

“No,” Harry snapped, “you will _not.”_

“Whatever your personal feelings for me, Potter, it must be admitted that I am the best potions master in the country, and that can only be beneficial to your recovery,” the Slytherin declared, crossing his arms and meeting Harry’s gaze stubbornly.

“I’m _recovering_ just fine thank you- and I wasn’t too bad off in the first place, I’ll thank you to remember,” the younger professor ground out, just as stubborn.

“Draco, tell him that I’m the best you know.”  Severus turned to his godson.

“I’m not going to tell Harry what he should do, as this is his decision,” Draco began, finally meeting Snape’s eyes.  “But I feel it would be remiss to my duties as a healer not to tell you, Harry, that however he’s mishandling the situation-” his gaze got stronger as he glared slightly at the man, “that he _is_ better than anyone else I could recommend.”  He sighed- this night had been looking up for all of twenty minutes, and now it was worse than before.

“Come now Potter- wouldn’t it be easier to have your brewer in the castle, instead of having to go all the way to wherever you’re going now?  I’ll even deliver them to your quarters personally,” he offered, making what he thought was quite a concession.

“Why?” Harry challenged.  “Why would you want to make more work for yourself, hmm?  Trying to ease your guilt by making life better for ‘poor, abused Potter?’” he jeered mockingly.  “Upset that you didn’t find out in our occlumency ‘lessons?’” he continued, putting air quotes around the last word before laughing bitterly.  “I suppose I was better than you thought at _that,_ huh?”

“Potter, as much as it pains me to admit, you have every right to be upset with me, but-”

“Don’t you talk about rights to me,” Harry ground out.  “Not when we didn’t even have the right to a safe learning environment in your class.  I really was looking forward to potions, you know, before Hogwarts? Read the book twice through, under the covers in my bedroom, hiding from my uncle in case he got drunk and forgot how much Hagrid had scared him.  But then you ruined it right off the bat, expecting me to be some sort of degenerate, expecting things from me just like everybody else, not even giving me a chance to show you who I was first. I _know_ those questions you asked me weren’t in the first year textbook- I read it _twice,_ after all.  I mean, who _does_ that?”  He was angrier than he had been in a long time, his jaw clenched and his face red, the anger visible even through his darker skin tone.

“Potter, I-”

“No, I _know_ what you want,” Harry grit out.  “And I’m going to make you an ultimatum instead- you want to make my medications to ease your guilt? _Fine-_ but you have to apologize to Neville _first,_ for treating him even worse than you treated me, and you have to _mean it._ And then maybe I’ll let you ease your stupid guilt!”  He continued glaring at Snape, not willing to be the first one to leave, not before he made sure Draco was doing alright and saw him safely home.  He wasn’t going to end a night with someone he cared about on such a negative note.

Snape opened his mouth again, but Harry held up a hand.  “Don’t speak,” he ordered. “When you speak, I want you to _mean_ it, not give me more of this appeasing codswallop.  So you’re going to turn around, go back through the floo, and _think about it._ Think about if you can really work up some remorse for being such a grade-A arse to a kid who did nothing but try his best, a kid who you were so mean to you that you were his _worst fear,_ despite the fact that his parents were _tortured by death eaters!_ Now get out of my sight.”

The man was subdued, and this was the only time besides when Harry had found him in The Shrieking Shack, full of Nagini’s venom, that Harry had seen him without a sneer on his face or some other expression of derision.  He turned towards the floo, and Harry nodded once, tightly, in satisfaction. Then he wheeled back to the kettle, setting it to boil with his wand again.

“We never got to tea,” he said calmly to Draco.  “You want your usual?”

“Sure,” Draco replied, voice barely above a whisper, and the tension in Harry’s face faded a bit as he gave the blonde a crooked smile.

“Alright then- I will debase myself by putting milk in your Earl Grey,” he laughed, eyes shining, as Draco wondered if he’d ever again work up the courage to kiss him.


	7. Chapter 7

Draco was avoiding Harry; he was too embarrassed about what had happened (or, to be more precise, _almost_ happened) the other night.  What if Harry had just gotten caught up in the moment and didn’t _really_ like him that way?  He didn’t think he could handle that… no, it was far better just to avoid his friend until he’d managed to get his thoughts straightened out (no pun intended; he was too depressed for that.  Besides, puns were more Harry’s thing… oh, _Harry…)._ Or until the whole thing blew over… but what if it never did?   _Merlin,_ he missed Harry so much…

 _Pull yourself together, you sap,_ he told himself sternly.   _Drink some coffee, have a wank in the shower, and move on with your life.  You can’t get hung up on the chosen one- you’re a death eater, for Merlin’s sake!_

Of course, if it were that easy not to fall in love with the chosen one, Draco’s Hogwarts years would have been _a lot_ easier…

___________

Harry knew that Draco was avoiding him because of their almost-kiss; he wasn’t stupid.  He also knew that he wanted to be with Draco, and now he was fairly certain that Draco wanted to be with him.  But he didn’t want to push Draco into talking about these feelings before he was ready, not when it could ruin their chance at a future.  So he decided to give him time. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. He missed hanging out with Draco. He’d thought that he’d missed being able to walk, back when the accident first happened and there were so many things he was getting used to not being able to do, but that feeling was _nothing_ compared to the way he felt without Draco.  Ron and Hermione were worried about him; they said he seemed distracted.  He told them that he would be fine, that he was just adjusting. And for a few hours, when it was just them hanging out on the weekends with crap telly and takeaway as Harry felt his new godchild growing and kicking inside of his best friend as she placed one of his hands on her belly… well, then things really _were_ fine, or at least almost fine.  Which was good, because it helped his friends worry less; they didn’t need that, not when Hermione was six months pregnant and Ron was about to start his own healer’s training, having finally found something that he wanted to do, having realised that he could help _other_ people to not feel as helpless as he had that night, with Harry’s limp, fading body in his arms…

And Harry was handling it productively; really, he was.  He threw himself even further into his work. He put everything he had into teaching his classes, until all the returning students said that he was the best teacher they’d ever had, and the OWLS and NEWTS students were certain they would pass their exams with flying colours.  He also started up the Hogwarts duelling club again- a real, useful thing this time, unlike it had been back in his second year. He gave flying lessons to those kids that needed extra help outside of Hooch’s classes, and he supervised Gryffindor practices and gave them pointers when they asked him to.  And at night, when he couldn’t sleep and merely spent hours restlessly moving his upper body, he took his broom out to the pitch, flying higher and higher towards the stars as he tried to leave his problems on the ground, until the air was so cold that his hands felt frozen even in their gloves and three jumpers and his thickest cloak wasn’t enough to keep the chill out of his bones.

Minerva pulled him aside one day to ask if he might be taking on just a bit too much, but he promised her that he was okay, that he was handling it and knew what he was doing, and she’d pursed her lips but reluctantly dropped the subject.  It was as if life wanted to prove him wrong, however, because the next day, after he’d stayed up late grading exams for his classes because he’d promised them they would get to know their grade within the week, he woke up with a tickle in his throat and a light pounding in his head.

Harry had never been known for having the best of ideas, however, so he simply ignored it.  He’d never had the luxury of taking sick days in his life thus far, not even when he was five and felt his shivering, coughing, fevered self pulled out of the cupboard with a kick in the ribs and a stern instruction to ‘do his chores, boy!’ so he really didn’t see the point in starting now, especially over something so minor.  So that day he rolled out of bed, pulled himself into his chair, fed Malfoy (who seemed to think that they _should_ stay in bed, having no inclination to get up out of the pillows), and rolled himself to class.  He had a heated practice duel with one of his seventh years, an auror hopeful who had requested that he please not go easy on her, and although he managed to beat her without an extraordinary amount of difficulty, even in his chair, he _was_ panting a bit by the end of it.

“Good job,” he congratulated her, wiping a his brow and musing that the room felt a little too cold for him to be sweating like this.  “The force will be lucky to have people like you; let me know if you need any letters of recommendation.”

She’d looked ecstatic when he made the offer and had been unable to prevent herself from leaning down to hug him in a fit of impulsive glee.  He’d been a little surprised but had returned the gesture, glad that he was making a difference in people’s lives in a way he just hadn’t felt on the force.  Biting back a cough, he’d set to grading the latest batch of fifth-year essays, wondering when the best time to give them a practice OWL would be.

He tried to go to bed early that night, trying to nip whatever he’d caught in the bud, but Malfoy’s whinging kept him awake.

 _“Honestly,_ it’s for your own good,” he grumbled huskily in response to the latest chorus of plaintive “dook dook dook”s.  “Ferrets can catch human colds, you know.”

In the next room, Malfoy continued to cry, and Harry’s guilt kept him awake long after he’d cast a silencing charm to block it out.

The next morning, a Thursday, he’d woken up with a sheen of fever sweat on his forehead and a headache bad enough that he almost _did_ at least _contemplate_ the idea of taking a day off, but then he remembered that he’d promised his first years that he would let them do a basic practice duel as a reward for their stellar quiz grades, and besides, the thought of spending the day alone in bed with his thoughts circling back to Draco gave him an aching feeling of emptiness in the pit of his stomach.  

Draco managed to work his way in anyway, however, when in the bathroom that morning, Harry decided he would have to cast a glamour to hide the sickly pallor of his skin and the fever flush in his cheeks.  He cringed when he remembered that he’d promised Draco that he wouldn’t put them up for more than an hour or two at a time anymore (and then only if he had to be bare-chested in front of people), but then again, Draco wasn’t there.  Draco _hadn’t_ been there for two weeks now, and he sighed sadly as he cast the spell, feeling it immediately start to pull at his already-depleted energy supplies.

That day he found himself not only okay with being in a wheelchair but for the first time _glad_ of it, as if he’d had to stand up he was quite certain he would have immediately fallen.  Numerous students from first years all the way to seventh asked him if he was alright that day, but he told them he was just a bit tired as he mentally berated himself for allowing his acting skills to fall so far; there was a time when he’d hidden worse than this without even Ron and Hermione suspecting that he was doing so poorly.

 _Pull yourself together,_ he ordered.   _It’s just a bit of a cold._ Luckily he was alone on his break at the time, as his body was immediately wracked with a string of harsh coughs, as if it was trying to prove him wrong (or perhaps just protesting the fact that he was pushing it so hard).

He struggled to catch his breath and called a house elf to let Minerva know that he would be grading during his lunch break but that he would eat (it was a lie; he knew that he couldn’t afford to be skipping meals but at the same time just couldn’t bring himself to stomach anything).  He sighed, the sound raspy with the congestion in his chest, as he contemplated the lies that were piling up.

The next day, the alarm on his wand rang after he’d only just managed to fall asleep and sent knives of stabbing pain into his head, but he still didn’t yield to the temptation to stay curled up under his nice warm blankets, instead piling on even _more_ jumpers than usual and strengthening his glamour charms again.  

 _If it’s not better by tomorrow, I’ll go to Madame Pomfrey for a Pepper-up,_ he told himself, even though he knew he would do no such thing.

It turned out he didn’t get the chance.  As he was heading towards his first class (having missed breakfast, the illness causing his morning routine to take even longer than it normally did with his handicap), _fucking Snape_ interposed himself in his path.

“Alright Potter- my office, _now._ This has gone on long enough.”

“I’m not a student anymore- you can’t just order me around.”  He tried to sound snappish, but instead he just sounded hoarse as another cough tore a path up his throat.

“I gave you _three days_ to do the responsible thing and seek out medical attention for what is clearly an advanced case of the flu by now, but you did not, and therefore I am intervening on behalf of your health,” Snape declared.

“I don’t _need_ your intervention,” Harry grit out stubbornly, trying to wheel around him, but Snape cast a sticking charm on the wheels of his chair, and the younger professor realised right at that moment that he didn’t even feel well enough to reverse it.  He already felt the glamours slipping as he let his pounding head flop against the back of the chair.

Snape, meanwhile, had been casting diagnostic charms.  “Shit, Potter, you _absolute buffoon,_ you’ve managed to turn a cold into pneumonia _on top of_ the flu in only three days.  You’re going to Mungo’s.”

“What?!- No!” Harry protested, barely able to make his voice audible.  “I coul…” he broke down in another fit of coughing, nearly a minute long.  “Poppy’s…” he finished weakly, gasping for breath.

“You need one-on-one care by this point, Potter, so if you wanted to go to Poppy’s, you should have gone three days ago,” Snape told him unsympathetically as he wheeled him towards the floo.  Harry would have _liked_ to point out that he’d rather not go _anywhere,_ but his throat hurt too much to speak and breathing was hard enough as it was.  He finally gave up and allowed himself the blissful sensation of slipping off to sleep in his chair, too exhausted to be kept awake even by his significant discomfort.

___________

Draco was coming off of a night shift but had agreed to work a double, and he pulled on a clean pair of gloves just as another call came for him.

“Healer Malfoy to room 221, healer Malfoy to room 221,” the desk witch’s voice rang over a sonorous charm.  “We have a patient with a severe flu and pneumonia in need of immediate attention.”

 _Pneumonia_ **_and_ ** _the flu,_ he thought to himself.   _That sounds like something Harry would do._ He meant it as more of a fond musing than anything (although he knew he _should_ be trying to keep Harry out of his head…), but as he got closer to the room he remembered that this was the one they reserved for high-profile patients, the same one that Harry had stayed in after his accident....

And come to think of it, he was a neurologist… why would they be callin _him_ in for a case of the flu, unless it was one of his regular patients…

 _Shit!_  He was nearly running by the time he reached the correct hallway, and as he shoved the door open it was indeed Harry that the nurses were setting up in the bed, and Sev of all people beside him.

“What…” he swallowed thickly… “what happened?”

“This imbecile has been overworking himself,” Snape drawled, although Draco knew him well enough to detect a spark of worry in his black eyes.  “I finally all but forced him through the floo to you.”

“Oh Merlin…” Draco groaned, gripping his head.  “Harry, you _fucking idiot…”_

He got an IV line set up and performed a spell that would help him to breath more easily before tipping a number of potions down Harry’s throat.  He’d be fine, thankfully, but he’d need a good two weeks of bedrest and a stern reminder about knowing the limits of his own body.

Healer Malfoy called in and took the rest of the day off, sitting by Harry’s bedside and looking down at his pale face, the colour of weak tea instead of its usual rich latte colour.  “Circe’s tits, Harry, I shouldn’t have left you alone…” he muttered, staring down at his clasped hands. “It’s clear that you can’t take care of yourself…”

Then a terrible thought occurred to him… he’d been avoiding Harry, but what was rather unusual was that Harry had _let_ him.  He knew the man well enough to know that he wasn’t one to let things go quite so easily, so it stood to reason that he’d been giving Draco his space.  What if… what if Harry had missed Draco as much as Draco had missed Harry, and had been doing the same thing that he himself had been by pulling long hours at work?  His immune system wouldn’t have been able to handle that, not like Draco’s after good childhood nutrition and an acquired resistance to a great many things that he’d picked up during his healer’s training.

He was spiraling down into a vortex of self-deprecation for several hours before the monitoring charms alerted him to Harry’s waking up.  Instead of expressing the immense relief he felt and opening himself up to being emotionally honest, however, he chose the far easier route at pushing his anger at himself out onto the other man.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” he snarled, glaring at the man.  “I barely saved your life six months ago, and now you’re risking it by thinking you’re fucking _superhuman?_ Merlin, Potter, I thought you’d learned better than that by now!”

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Harry croaked, his voice sounding somewhat distorted through the spell helping him breathe.  “I guess I just… wasn’t thinking…”

“Damn right you weren’t!” Draco swore, angrily running a hand through his hair and ruining it’s perfect order.  “I mean, I just can’t believe…”

“I should have fought for you,” Harry interrupted suddenly, and Draco was startled enough to stop his vehement ranting.  “I told myself that I wanted to give you your space, but that was wrong… really, I was just scared. I’ve never felt like this before, about anyone… that night we almost kissed, well, it was like… I could literally _feel_ our magic syncing together, and I… there’s never been anyone, guy or girl, who gives me the kind of rush you do when I look at you.  And it was easier for me to tease and flirt and make excuses about wanting to let you do things on your own time, but the truth was that I was falling in love with you and I didn’t know how to handle it.  People are always coming to me, because they think I’m special for some reason. But Draco, _you’re_ special, and I should have made you feel special; I should have gone to _you,_ jumped in and treasured you and been the Gryffindor and _gone for it,_ but instead I turned tail and ran… er, wheeled really fast…” The whole speech had been sincere and emotional, just spilling out of Harry, but as he got towards the end his head seemed to catch up to his mouth about what he was doing, and now he looked very, _very_ embarrassed as he stared at Draco’s unblinking, shocked expression.

He couldn’t believe it- Harry liked him back.  No, Harry _loved_ him back, or at least thought he could.  And he really _had_ gotten himself into this position because Draco had been avoiding him.  He suddenly felt terrible again, all the fight gone out of him.

“You know you deserve better,” he sighed eventually, unable to stop himself from running a hand gently over Harry’s cheek.

“I don’t care what you think I deserve, Draco- I _want_ you,” Harry swore, reaching for his hand and holding it in his own.  “And I felt the energy in the room that night; I know you want me too.  Please, just give this a chance; I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again if you don’t,” he suddenly declared, softening his face into his best begging look.  Draco couldn’t help but laugh, breaking the tension.

“Merlin, Harry, there would have been easier ways of asking me out than getting yourself laid up in hospital again.”

“Would there really, though?”  Harry teased, his eyes sparkling with mirth.  “I mean, this is _us-_ we spent our school years obsessively stalking each other and beating the shite out of each other by turns.”

“I really think _you_ did more of the stalking…” Draco protested.

“Oh, so you just happened to _run into_ our train compartment every year by complete coincidence, then?” Harry raised a sarcastic eyebrow, wincing when the movement caused him a jolt of pain in his head.

“Alright, fair point,” Draco chuckled gently, turning the lights down in the room with his wand.  “Now, why don’t you get some rest, so you can take me on a proper date when you get out of here?”

“As you wish, Doctor,” Harry grinned, his eyes already drooping.  “I’ll wear a proper set of dress robes and everything.”

“Circe save me, I think I’m smitten enough that it wouldn’t matter,” he whispered as Harry dropped off completely.  He smiled gently, all his features softening to something beautiful and tender that very few ever got to see as he leaned down to place a kiss on Harry’s forehead before killing the lights completely, taking the other man’s hand in his own as, beyond the window, the sun sank further towards the horizon, marking the path towards a better day.


End file.
